Taking Your Faith Seriously: The First Step to Becoming a Godly Man (Ep. 273)

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Are you struggling to grow your faith and find your purpose? What does it actually mean to have a relationship with God as a man today? How can faith impact your family, friendships, fitness, and finances?

Welcome to this episode of the MOI Podcast, where we dive deep into the key questions men are asking about faith and purpose! Hosts Ryan and Colton from Men of Iron unpack the real challenges guys face when it comes to taking faith seriously—and why it matters more than ever.

In this episode, you'll discover:
Practical steps to assess and grow your faith, even if you think you're starting at "zero."
Being honest about where you are is the first step to building a stronger relationship with God.
How can your personal faith create a powerful "ripple effect" in your marriage, family, workplace, and community?
The difference between "checking the boxes" (like just going to church) and actually walking with Jesus daily.
Actionable tips to set real goals for growing spiritually and surrounding yourself with accountability.
Inspiring stories from real men who've transformed their lives by making a simple choice to pursue God.

If you're ready to move past surface-level faith and step into the high calling you've been created for, this episode is for you. Whether you’re at a crossroads or just wanting to level up, you’ll find the encouragement, resources, and community to make lasting change.

👉 Don’t forget to check out the free resources and Men of Iron groups linked in the description to start your journey today!

#MensFaith #ChristianMen #MOIPodcast #PurposeDrivenLife #MenofIron

Like, comment, and subscribe for weekly episodes packed with faith, leadership, and actionable steps to help you thrive in all areas of life!

For more info or to get connected, visit menofiron.org

Transcript

Colton [00:00:00]:
Like, and he wants. He wants that relationship again. He wants that relationship with you. So even if you're in that weird spot of your faith right now, and maybe you're saying, maybe I am, like, a 2 right now, and you want it, and you're trying to grow that faith, like, that might be the first step. Maybe you need to come to yourself. Like, maybe you need to actually realize where you are on that scale of faith. And how are you. Are you taking it seriously?

Ryan [00:00:22]:
Hey, welcome back to the Men of Iron podcast. At Men of Iron, we exist to change a culture one man at a time. We want all of you to know God and know your purpose, and one of the ways we can help you do that is lots of resources that we have available to you. You can look at the link in our description. There's a lot of links to free resources. You can also click that link to get involved in our next group. No matter where you are, you're going to want to check that out. This month, we're diving into the first of our core five. So at Men of Iron, we want you to thrive in your core five. That is your faith, family, friends, fitness, and finances. Got them. And so this month, we're diving into faith and just what it looks like to be a man who takes his faith seriously. One of the things we've talked about in the office is that sometimes we just, like, blast that out there and don't really dive deep into what that is and what that looks like. So we're taking this month. We probably won't hit all of it, but we'll go a little bit deeper than what we usually do. So I'm here today with Colton.

Colton [00:01:18]:
What's going on?

Ryan [00:01:19]:
And we're going to jump into this thing, man.

Colton [00:01:21]:
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I think, to your point, we preach these core five.

Ryan [00:01:25]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:01:26]:
And we're like, guys need to be, you know, strong in their core five. And we even. We even grade our core fives now. And looking at that, and you can say, well, where do I really fall on this scale? And, like, what does that look like? Where do I start with faith to even know? Like, am I grading this off of, like, my current walk, my past walk? Is it how I'm living now? And then how do I actually make adjustments to raise that score up? So I think some guys are like, well, maybe I'm at a three, but how do I get to a five?

Ryan [00:01:51]:
Yep.

Colton [00:01:51]:
Like, how do I get to a. Like, maybe even, like, how to get 3.5 and like, what are those little things that I can do to help accomplish that?

Ryan [00:01:58]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:01:58]:
But I think there is, like, we need to get a baseline of, like, where it all start. Like, what is faith?

Ryan [00:02:03]:
Yeah. So, I mean, I already said it at the top. One of the things we say all the time is we want you to know God and know your purpose. And probably the flip side of that is we believe you actually can't know your purpose if you don't know God. And I've seen over the course of my life, lots of guys, myself included, at times actually, where you just get lost and you're not sure what you're trying to do, you're not sure why you're trying to do it. And a lot of times, honestly, guys, it comes back to your relationship with God. And I think one of the things I want to highlight just right at the top is all of us, everyone has been designed by God for relationship with God. And sometimes we get really, really good at convincing ourselves that that is not the case. But I'm telling you, like, over the course of my life, I'm so convinced that everybody in the world has this sense of their being a God and some kind of desire for relationship with God. We'll probably get some pushback on that from time to time, but I'm just convinced it's true. I think God has designed us in his image to enjoy relationship with Him. And no matter how far you try to run from God, I think you know that he's there. I think you know that he wants relationship with you. For some of us that get really far away from God, I think we're just good at fooling ourselves into believing something is just simply not true. So again, if you're a man, if you're a woman, too, you're designed for a relationship with God. And if you want to really thrive in being the man that God has called you to be, you got to start with being a godly man.

Colton [00:03:33]:
I think that. Right. That piece where he kicked it off for me, I can speak right into that.

Ryan [00:03:37]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:03:38]:
Like, my life, I grew up, I was a pastor's kid. My dad was a youth leader. And I went away from God for a certain period of time. But I never forgot that there was a God. Even though I could. I was making bad decisions. I wasn't leading the way I should. I wasn't making great choices in my life. I still knew God was there. And I think, like, my mind always goes to. And I love. We always talk about the prodigal son that Story is probably. We. We run that story a lot. But my favorite part of that story was when he was eating with the pigs. The Bible says he came to himself.

Ryan [00:04:09]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:04:10]:
He actually realized, like, what am I doing? And I think sometimes in our faith, we. That can happen is, like, we're making bad decisions. We're not taking our faith seriously. We're not looking at it, like, how this actually impacts my life. And then you actually have that realization moment of, like, what am I doing? I know there's a God that loves me. He cares for me. He has grace for me as mercy for me, but sometimes we just forget it. Until the point that God takes you maybe to that point, or you're choosing to go to that point, but he's still there, and he loves you, and he wants that relationship with you to the end. Part of the story that we always talk about, the father runs to the son, like, and he wants. He wants that relationship again. He wants that relationship with you. So even if you're in that weird spot of your faith right now, and maybe you're saying, maybe I am like, a two right now, and you want it, and you're trying to grow that faith, like, that might be the first step. Maybe you need to come to yourself.

Ryan [00:05:00]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:05:00]:
Like, maybe you need to actually realize where you are on that scale of faith. And how are you. Are you taking it seriously?

Ryan [00:05:06]:
Yeah, you just mentioned that, like, we score our core five, right? So we. We do, like, a one to five, sometimes a one to ten. One of the biggest steps we can do is just be honest about where we're at. It's not like you don't lose points if you're at a 1. Actually, if you're honest with yourself about where you're at, then you can actually get honest with yourself about what you need to do to grow. And. And actually, like, if. If you're at a zero, like, if. If you're a guy that's, like, maybe just curious, maybe you found this podcast by accident or something, it's okay to say, like, you know, I'm not totally sure about this. I'm not really sure what I need to do about this. I don't even know if there is a God. What I would say is respond to that nudge like, you didn't bump into this by accident. You bumped into this because God led you to it, and try to figure out what it looks like for you to take some steps. And one of the things we're going to do over the next couple of weeks is talk through what some of those tangible steps look like. Sometimes we dive right into the stuff without hitting some of the basics. So some of the super basics for us about faith is when we talk about faith, we talk about Christian faith. You need a relationship with Jesus. All of us have been affected by sin. Sin can become this really complicated idea, but it's actually pretty simple. Sin just means missing the mark. So God intends for us to have relationship with him. And there's many, many, many things in our lives that cause us to miss the mark and not do what he has created us to do. Those are simple things like, I don't know, you lie, you're jealous, and those are extreme things. Like you fall into serious addiction with lust or you know, you, you steal something, whatever, you know, you can, you can make whatever list. All those things are sins that separate us from God. The only way that we can achieve right relationship with God, and really it's not even something we achieve, it's a free gift from God, is that we trust Jesus as our Savior. Jesus was a real man who lived a real life, but he was unique in that he was God and man. And Jesus ultimate gave his life as a sacrifice, as propitiation, if you want to be fancy, as payment for our sin. And when we trust that Jesus is the payment for our sin, we can have right relationship with God. Sometimes if you've been around faith for a long time, it's easy to think about. Faith is like, oh yeah, I did that thing like when I was 12, I prayed that prayer and like I walked up to the front or I got baptized or you know, whatever, I accepted Christ. Like, great, that's awesome. We love that. Fantastic. We celebrate that. Faith is not a one time thing. It's a day in and day out thing. So we want to walk together with Jesus. We want to get closer to him. We want to just day in and day out honor him with our lives. And I think what we're talking about when we score our core five is just how are we doing with that?

Colton [00:07:47]:
Yeah, I think scoring Core 5 also is a little bit accountability.

Ryan [00:07:50]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:07:51]:
I get to actually look and be like you were saying before, I can actually be real and actually know where to grow from.

Ryan [00:07:57]:
Yeah. Just tell the truth.

Colton [00:07:58]:
And I think that right there is the first step in it because I think so many times we can fake it. You fake it till you make it. You know what I mean? Like, and why, exactly why, like we try to fake this, like, oh yeah, I'm a three or I'm a Four. Or we. Or we say. Because I'm doing all these things at my church. That's why I rank myself that high. It has nothing to do with that.

Ryan [00:08:18]:
Well, yeah, because at the end of the day, you're not actually walking with Jesus.

Colton [00:08:20]:
Yes.

Ryan [00:08:21]:
You're just doing this thing to be seen. You're just trying to check a box, which, you know, some of those boxes that we check can be good disciplines. We'll dig into that in the next couple of weeks. But they don't actually draw you closer to Jesus if you're doing them just to check the box. That's not the point.

Colton [00:08:35]:
Yeah. Christianity and walking and that relationship with God is not a check the box kind of thing. It's a. You're growing continually. And we were talking about earlier today, we were diving into. Look, we were looking at the podcast as a whole. We're looking at these different pieces, and it's like, this is a relationship. It takes time to grow it, and we have to spend. And we're going to jump into those disciplines later, but we got to spend time with them. I mean, and I think that big piece right there is. Sometimes we just. Oh, it's just a Sunday thing for me. We can. We can make faith a Sunday thing. We need to make it an everyday thing of getting to know him and understand him so we know how he. How he loves us, how he cares for us. And when we think of that faith as that big picture, sometimes we box it. And that's not faith. Faith. It can be. It could show up at your job, it can show up in your family, and God can be using it in your life. And sometimes we just don't even realize it, that he's trying to use situations in our rights to. In our lives to grow that faith that we have with Him.

Ryan [00:09:32]:
One of the things we see at Men of Iron, and we bump into people that might express his opinion or we see it in the comments or whatever. We. We're obviously a men's organization. We care about men, and sometimes men can get tied up. I say in. In silly stuff. And so we define our manhood, our manliness, by manly things that we do, right? So it's like, okay, well, I. I go out and hunt. Like, I. I love spending Saturday trying to find something to kill. All right, that seems pretty manly. I'm gonna go work on my car. I'm gonna go build a house. I'm gonna go run a business. I'm gonna go like, what's interesting about that is that God has designed us to enjoy those kinds of things. And, and that's why we resonate with those kinds of things. But those are not what define you as a man. What defines you as a man is your relationship with God. And that doesn't make you weak. It actually means you're embracing the task that God has given us. Because God has not given us a small task. We believe that men have a very special role in God's plan. One of the things we say in some of our content is you are, if you're a man, you are or you will be the spiritual leader in your family. And men do have this incredible ability for a ripple effect. We share about the ripple effect a lot. Like when, when somebody that we're working with starts to take their faith seriously, when they really start to strive to know God and know their purpose, it always affects more than just them. So, so if you're, if you're married, it starts to affect your wife. Your wife starts to notice different. She might start to thrive and be more healthy because you're taking your relationship with God more seriously. If you're a dad, your kids start to notice that, they start to get more serious about their faith. If you're a leader in an organization, people that you work with start to notice it. So men have this incredible ability to drive change. And we don't want to drive change. That's just tough. It's fine to be tough. Like tough's not bad. But we want to drive, ultimately change that is focused on God and building his kingdom. And God has entrusted us for some reason with that responsibility. It's very bizarre that the God of the universe, the all powerful creator of all things, is like, I want you to help me with this, because he doesn't have to do that. But it's an opportunity that we can step into. And what's interesting about that is when we take that opportunity seriously, he will help us meet the task. So over and over and over again, God gives us unique abilities to meet the challenges that are in front of us. But it also gives us this ability to be like this incredible steward or shepherd of the plan that God has laid out. And what you'll see over and over again throughout history is men who take their relationship with God seriously, they grow their own faith, they impact the faith of those around them, and ultimately it carries on generation after generation. That's a crazy, compelling thought. Like, when you get close to God, you can actually help the people around you get closer to God. And even people after you're gone get Closer to God. So it's something we want to take seriously. It's something we want to equip you well to do, and we want to do it with you.

Colton [00:12:33]:
Yeah. I think the two things that really stick out to me and what you're just talking about, number one, it's a choice.

Ryan [00:12:39]:
Yeah, for sure.

Colton [00:12:40]:
It's like taking your faith seriously is a choice.

Ryan [00:12:42]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:12:42]:
And you have to make the choice to take it seriously. And we talk about men of iron all the time. Mentorship, all these different things. Be accountable to somebody, all these different things. But I think, number one, it's a choice. Number two is what you're talking about, that ripple effect.

Ryan [00:12:54]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:12:55]:
Time and time. I mean, you've probably. You've seen the videos on our YouTube. You see it happen all the time. We don't just make those stories up. It's not like we find this really good story. We were at a men's retreat. I was at a men's retreat a couple months ago, and we were speaking there, and guys in tears because they're actually realizing, like, I'm not taking this seriously in my life. And we saw it last week when we were at that retreat, like, I'm not taking this seriously in my life. And it's starting to affect not only myself, but my wife, my kids, family, church, whatever it may be. All those ripples that come out from that and stem from that is actually starting to affect that as well. And they're just. Now it's taking that aha moment, or they came to themselves. That retreat was that moment for them. And they were like, oh, shoot, like, this is actually going to impact my kids because I'm not taking my faith seriously. It's so crucial.

Ryan [00:13:43]:
And what's happening when you do that is you're actually walking the way you were designed to, to function. Like God made us, to desire relationship with him. Why would you reject that? Why would you purposely drive that away? Why would you purposely ignore it? I used to make the example like, you, you just got a new iPhone, Right? So when you get your new iPhone, you pull it out, you figure out how to use it. You know, maybe you have, like a couple tutorials or something. You wouldn't, like, take it out of the box and just dunk it in water right away. You wouldn't take it outside and run over it with your car right away. Why? Because it's not designed for that. And so as men, when we, like, purposely reject God, and men are very good at this, and we're very good at like, you know, just staying in that mode for a long time. When we purposely reject God or we purposely force him away from us, we're walking in a way we're not designed to walk. We're doing something we're not made to do, which is, at the end of the day, just silly. Like, what are you doing? Why are you making this harder for yourself? And so what we invite you to do is just embrace the God that has made you and honor him with your life. You're not going to get it all right away. I get it. But at least turn towards the Lord and start to examine what it looks like to have a relationship with Him. We see it over and over and over again. When a guy actually starts to make that pivot, it makes a huge difference in his life. Why? Because he's starting to function in the way he was designed to function. And you'll see, like, you might go through difficult things, but as you go through difficult things, you'll find that your life, like, you have more fulfillment in who you are. There's more just reward in living in a way that honors God. But ultimately it is a choice. And. And so what are you going to do with your choice? So I think for guys we're talking to, there's. There's really two ways this break down. One, you have a choice to get more serious about your faith and figure out how you can get closer to God. What are you going to do? What's it going to look like? How. How can you set a smart goal for that and invite somebody to hold you accountable? Or what's it going to look like for you to actually choose to move towards God? Because I know for sure we're going to hit guys that are against God.

Colton [00:15:51]:
Yeah.

Ryan [00:15:52]:
It's like, okay, well, let's get serious about this. What's going to look like for you to pivot away from where you are, closer to the Lord? Come to yourself and know that you've been designed to have a relationship with God. So start to pursue that relationship with God. Yeah, it might take a shot to your pride. All your buddies who also don't like God, they. They might make fun of you for a while, but ultimately you'll be walking the road that you've been designed to walk. You've been living the plan that God laid out for you before the foundations of the world. What better life could you pursue?

Colton [00:16:19]:
Yeah, God, God has a plan for you.

Ryan [00:16:21]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:16:22]:
And I think that's something that just with that faith piece, to even understand, like, there's a plan for your life. And sometimes we dis. Disregard it. Don't think it doesn't apply to me. No, God has a plan for your life. It's not an accident that you found this podcast that you heard about men of iron that you're running into this right now. Like, God has a plan for you, and it's not an accident that you're listening to this right now. And I think that's so big for us is number one, like you're saying the choice, but we have a high and holy calling on our lives, and as men, I think it's even amplified a little. I don't even know if that's biblical, but I feel like it's very much more amplified in that piece because of us being leaders and actually, really as we even believe, changing a culture, you know, guys can do it. And we are. We are called with that. And I think that piece alone is something that we really got to take seriously.

Ryan [00:17:09]:
I like to point out the picture of Abraham if you want. If you want to throw some Bible on this. Abraham in Genesis, chapter 12, he's. He's living an established life. And we know that by looking at some of the context around the story. He's got lots of herds, lots of livestock. He's got people in his family, like, a lot of family. And he's got like. Like people that work for his organization, his business, his farm, probably. And so God kind of hits him out of nowhere. He's like an older guy at this point. He's been living his whole life, most likely worshiping the sun and the moon, kind of doing his own thing. And in some moment, some way, I always talk about, like, Abraham's probably out tending to sheep or something. And God's just like, hey, I'm calling to you. Go to where I told you to go. And Abraham, in that moment, has to make a choice. Should I just keep living the way I've been living, or should I respond to this message that God has given to me? And so we don't. We don't know a lot about what. What that decision looked like. We don't know if he wrestled with it for a while. We do know that he ultimately decided to respond to God. And so when he responds to God, God rewards that. Later on in Genesis, it's going to say, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. That's faith.

Colton [00:18:20]:
Yeah.

Ryan [00:18:21]:
Abraham was like, okay, you know what? God's calling out to me. This is not by accident. There is some purpose in this plan, I'm gonna have faith to trust God. And so he made that choice. And then it was like a one time thing. But then every day he had to continue to make choices. We know the story of Abraham. He didn't always make the right choice, but eventually and ultimately what defined his life was the desire to honor God with his life. And that's the kind of life we're calling you to. What would it look like you man watching the podcast, to choose to honor God today with your life. And again, like on that scale, we don't know where you're at in the scale you do. So be honest about where you're at. If you're at a zero, you don't know God. Hey, listen, just start to check out some of our free resources. They're in the link. Start to dig into what it would look like to honor God with your life. If you're disconnected from a community that can hold you accountable, find that community. There's a link in the description for that too. We want to do whatever we possibly can to help you pursue this life of faith that we believe very strongly in. And again, you need a relationship with Jesus. Jesus has given his life for your sin. His blood covers your sin. And because of that sacrifice, you can have the free gift of salvation from God. Relationship with God. And you get a chance. I don't know why. Just because God's loving and gracious and merciful, you get a chance to actively build his kingdom. This is a thing that has been going on for generations and will continue for generations. I don't care what you see out the window. I don't care what you see on the news. God's kingdom is moving forward. It's picking up steam. We're not going to lose, you know, the battle. If you want to get like really crazy, we're not losing. Because when we honor God with our lives, we're committed to the, the thing we've been designed to do. And we get a chance to build his kingdom. And it'll last far longer than any kingdom we can build on our own.

Colton [00:20:05]:
Choose God, like make that choice in your life. Because I can guarantee, I can guarantee it. I've only been with men of iron for about a year now.

Ryan [00:20:12]:
Yeah.

Colton [00:20:12]:
But I've seen time and time again when guys actually make a choice to be held accountable for their, for their decisions or choices in those core five. And starting with faith, when they actually make that choice, their lives change.

Ryan [00:20:28]:
A good thing.

Colton [00:20:29]:
And it is wild to watch because I grew like I'VE said on the podcast several times, like, I grew up in church. I know church, right? But do I know my faith and do I have that relationship? And once I started to take my faith actually seriously, I can see it change. And in your life, like if you're listening to it, like, take that step. And if it's Men of Iron, come on, we're ready for you. Come on down. Look at those free resources like you were said, or get involved in one of our groups or whatever it may be. But I can tell you if you take it seriously, your lives are actually going to change and all the people.

Ryan [00:21:04]:
Around you are going to benefit.

Colton [00:21:05]:
Yes.

Ryan [00:21:06]:
Like it never returns. Void. Yep, we can see over and over again when you pursue spiritual health, when you take your faith seriously, everyone around you benefits. It is true. And if you respond today, you'll see the fruit of it. You might have some things you got to work through, but you'll see the fruit of a relationship with God. Either either starting a relationship with God or just strengthening it. And we're living this life of strengthening our relationship with God. So I'm excited to dive into some of these next topics over the next couple of weeks. We're just going to talk about a couple of ways that we can actually do this, like, what's it look like? What do you actually tangibly do and how does it work? So we're going to dive into that. We'll be back again next week. Don't forget, those links are in our description. You can join a group, we got something running. You can get free resources that are in there that can jumpstart your relationship with God or even just kind of reignite it and pick it back up. So check out those links. We'll be back again next week. We'll see you then.

Justin [00:22:01]:
Thanks for listening to the Men of Iron podcast. Be sure to, like, subscribe and share at Men of Iron. We exist, change a culture one man at a time. And we'd love to have you partner with us. So go to menoviron.org to see how you can get involved or donate@menaviron.org donate.